Tantrics Of Old

by Bhattacharya, Krishnarjun

  The roar was guttural, hollow and powerful. It froze everyone’s blood and sapped at their courage. ‘Devil Mask!’ a Commando roared.

  Adri did not move while the rest scurried away, creating some distance from the gigantic thing. He stood where he was, coldly eyeing the creature. He was thinking.

  ‘Kill it!’ Arshamm screamed, generating fireballs and throwing them as he bounded across the roof to where the Commandos were. Natasha looked at an unmoving Adri, still staring at the creature on the roof.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sen, but there’s nothing I can do now,’ she said before joining the fray, her gauntlets generating electricity.

  The Mask roared as the Commandos began firing holy rounds at it. Tentacles immediately burst out of its sides, a deadly bone spike at each end.

  ‘Watch it, tentacles!’ a Commando roared.

  The Commandos dodged and continued firing as the creature struck out. The holy rounds did not seem to be doing much damage to it; the creature struck out again and impaled two Commandos, raising their dead bodies to the air as the rest of the tentacles attacked more viciously than before.

  ‘No, no, STOP!’ Gray roared, running and tackling a Commando. The Commando, taken by surprise, was thrown off his feet. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ he roared, grabbing Gray and roughly shoving him aside.

  The Devil Mask could see everywhere at once. No one took it by surprise, not even Arshamm with his boomerang fireballs. The fireballs and holy rounds pounded into the creature’s dead flesh without effect; it struck back with lethal accuracy, impaling Commando after Commando. Natasha poured pure electricity into the Devil Mask, again without any result. At best, the electricity seemed to subdue it mildly. The beast roared, and Natasha yelled for the Commandos to find cover. Cover though, was tough to find as the Mask had the advantage of altitude and that of surprise. Fayne stood beside Adri, quietly watching everything, his hands full of daggers.

  ‘Impossible!’ Arshamm hissed, as the creature ignored his attacks. ‘How can it just resist my fire?

  ‘Change your attacks, Arshamm!’ Natasha screamed.

  Gray had been punched by the Commando he tried to disarm. The punch sent him reeling to a wall, where he crumpled to the floor, staying there. His will was sapped, he merely looked at everything happening in front of him as though it were a dream.

  ‘Don’t kill my sister,’ he murmured.

  The Mask jumped and landed where they were. It was moving quicker than before now. One of its bone limbs reached out and crushed another Commando. The others retreated across the roof, firing away at the Necrotic. Arshamm and Natasha poured in all the electricity they could muster.

  ‘Adri,’ Fayne said.

  Adri was still gazing at the creature in wonder, his mind working furiously. Then it all clicked. ‘Of course,’ he mumbled, and then turned to Fayne. ‘Ready?’ he said. ‘Stand by.’ Fayne nodded.

  The creature was now like a twisted pincushion of death, corpses waving about at the ends of its tentacles, the eyes in the Mask burning white and cruel as it ignored Adri and Fayne and walked towards the group of the two Sorcerers and the few surviving Commandos. Adri turned to Gray and saw him lying immobile across the roof, away from the Devil Mask. He ran to the white haired figure.

  ‘Gray! Gray! It’s time!’ Adri hissed.

  ‘Leave me here, Adri,’ Gray muttered. ‘I want to die here.’

  Adri slapped Gray hard.

  ‘OW!’ Gray roared. ‘You did that on purpose!’

  ‘Get the hell up and play the violin!’ Adri shouted. ‘There’s no time!’

  Gray’s eyes opened wide. ‘But Maya?’

  ‘We are extracting her now! Play the bloody violin!’

  Gray nodded and scampered to where his violin case lay, luckily undamaged. Adri looked at the Mask as it rapidly bore down upon the survivors. It was now or never.

  ‘Fayne! Right when the music starts!’ Adri shouted.

  Fayne was running towards the Devil Mask. The creature had its back towards Fayne, but it never missed anything. A couple of tentacles lashed out at the assassin as he ran.

  Gray started to play. It was imperfect and horrible, and even more so because of all the pressure Gray was under. His hands trembled and he got his basic notes wrong. But the moment the music began it talked to the Necrotic in a language it could comprehend clearer than anything else. It dropped all its attacks immediately and whipped around to face the music.

  Fayne completed his run, slicing through the two tentacles and burying two daggers into the Devil Mask’s stomach. The next second, he turned both the daggers to cut two enormous arcs in its stomach, completing a full circle through bone and flesh. The Mask froze, Gray played. A section of the stomach dropped out with black slime and translucent fluid—the assassin stepped aside nimbly to avoid getting hit—and inside was Maya, white soft cilia keeping her in place like a puppet in the Devil Mask’s centre. The creature had completely stopped moving, but Fayne was still very quick at slashing away the tentacles and catching Maya’s limp body as she fell out. The Devil Mask roared and looked at its cut, bleeding stomach as Fayne rushed away with Maya. The creature roared again, fighting the music, but it could not help listening to the violin for a few seconds more even as the Sorcerers behind it pelted it with fireballs. Gray stopped suddenly, and the spell broken, the Devil Mask leapt onto the roof of the next building, and disappeared.

  Everybody was stunned. ‘Well, after it!’ Natasha screamed the next instant and the four surviving commandos nodded and rushed off towards the staircase. Arshamm and Natasha went with them, briefly glancing at Maya now in Fayne’s arms.

  Gray ran to Fayne. Maya was motionless.

  ‘Adri,’ Gray said, looking at Maya. ‘Was she healed?’

  ‘The Devil Mask knew the way here because it had access to Maya’s memories,’ Adri said. ‘That’s how it found us here. Which leads me to believe that the Mask had completely integrated Maya as a host; she should be perfectly healed of the corruption.’

  ‘Maya’s memories?’ Fayne asked.

  ‘Yes, and I know what it implies. It seems Maya, even in her coma, has been perfectly aware of our movements and our surroundings,’ Adri said. ‘It is surprising.’

  Gray looked back at the soaked Maya, lying unconscious, but breathing. Her face seemed to be returning to a more normal colour. Was she really cured?

  ‘Let her rest,’ Adri said. ‘I believe she has a lot of catching up to do when she does wake.’

  When the morning sun rose, Adri was not on the roof with the others. He was quite a distance away, alone, walking through empty streets. There were not many birds that still called out in the mornings and it made Adri feel better to hear them. Things were changing for the better now. He was quite sure Maya was cured; perhaps he could send the three of them back now. Fayne would be as good an insurance as any that they got back into New Kolkata safe and sound—the siblings would probably be dying to leave anyway. The bridge was nearby and so was the road to Pestilence. What waited for him now was his to deal with. And deal he would. Alone.

  ‘Which way?’ he asked.

  The next right, the Wraith said.

  Adri walked some more before he saw the gates of the graveyard in the distance. It was small, not as big as the one in Park Street.

  ‘Well Wraith, to tell you the truth it wasn’t bad, this you being in my body. Towards the end you had become so quiet that there were times I forgot you were there,’ Adri said.

  Isn’t that nice to hear, the Wraith said drily. The time is almost upon us, either way. You have bound me to my word, and I will show you where I want to leave.

  Adri looked down at his right arm—the scales had spread and were covering the entire arm, glinting in the sunlight.

  ‘About time, too,’ he said, entering the graveyard.

  Maya was in Adri’s room, watching him sleep. She had been feeling better as of late, but something about the world was changing. Colours were gradually beginning to
fade away, things far away were beginning to blur. She was wondering what it was, yet she never had a choice but to stay and watch. She sat on a chair near the bed now, looking around the room for something new. It was a room she had seen too many times in her memories, so much so that she was intimately familiar with everything about it, with every object in it. And yet she looked for something new, and a small new statuette on Adri’s table caught her eye. She had never seen it before. She would to have moved to pick it up, but Adri began talking in his sleep.

  It started off with random words, unusual muttering. Maya had seen him sleep before; he usually slept for a long while, and that was the most boring time to be around Adri. This time it was different. Adri woke up with a shout. Maya gasped, and looked at him. He was covered in sweat, tangled among his sheets, his face hidden. He was panting, but slowly, his breathing calmed down, and he looked up, straight at his table. His face was wet; Maya could not tell if it was sweat or tears. Adri climbed out of the bed, and the colours in the room slipped another degree towards black and white. Maya followed him as he went to his table and opened one of the drawers. He took out a small box, kept it on the table, and opened it. There was a single envelope inside. Light brown, with a red wax seal, long broken. Adri turned it over in his hands again and again before he slipped his fingers in and took out a small letter. As he kept the envelope down, Maya saw tiny, slender writing on it. Adri.

  Adri was opening the letter his mother had left him, the only thing she had ever had to say to him. Maya gazed at it in wonder as Adri unfolded and opened the letter. In the centre of the page, was a word, a single word, written neatly in the thin, cursive writing that was his mother’s.

  Live.

  The world went black and white and everything blurred. And Maya woke up with a start, gasping for air.

  It was a long time ago, the Wraith said. I remember I was afraid. I had been taught well by my masters, but I was never absolutely fearless. At that time I did not view vampires for the filth that they are. Back then, I was constantly amazed by their power, envious of their control over the night. Killing them was tough and I had been trained to believe that. My first real test was to actually put into practice all I had learnt, starting from the little magic tricks to the massive weapon training. Apprehension, uneasiness took me as the vampire crawled out of its coffin. I was sure I would mess it up somewhere, do something wrong.

  ‘But you killed it, of course,’ Adri said, walking through the graveyard. It was small, ill-maintained. Most of the statues and large tombstones were falling apart. A lot of graves were dirty, moss having taken over the stone slabs, names having been rubbed off by the elements. Adri did not like such graveyards. They were where magic caused things to go wrong, revealing its inherent chaotic nature. A place like this gave the magic in the air a room to play its own little games.

  I froze, initially. The vampire went by me, its long tongue licking my ear as it went. My sensei, watching from behind, looked at me disapprovingly, unsheathing his sword. Clearly, he planned to fail me after quickly ending this vampire. My career as a vampire hunter would have come to an end before it had even begun. If you remember, I had frozen, and I did not even turn back as the vampire passed me and reached my sensei. I heard quick slashing noises; I turned and saw my sensei fall to the ground, dead.

  Adri nodded. ‘Not quite the ordinary vampire, then?’

  It was a blood reaper, Tantric. And as I saw my sensei die, I felt my fear desert me. In front of me was one of the deadliest vampires, and I had been trained all my childhood to fight these things. I unsheathed my sword. The vampire looked at me and grinned savagely.

  ‘How old were you?’

  I was ten.

  Adri whistled. ‘Not bad.’

  The vampire came at me with the speed of the bat. I swung, but of course its power lay in the fact that it could sense my moves beforehand. Then I unleashed my energy blade, a weapon I had developed in secret even from my own sensei, and not one I could have ever used in front of him. The design of the blade I had stolen from the deepest, most well-kept files of the vampire hunters. And, of course, I had created the blade slowly, like an amateur. It was years later that I could perfect the weapon, but even then it served its basic purpose. It was not a tangible weapon so the vampire could not sense it coming; with every wound I landed on the hellspawn, one of my own wounds would heal immediately. I had not meant a stab at power when I had made the blade—it had simply been a precaution—one my sensei could have done with, I might add now. He was an old fool and he died. And I, Mazumder, Bane of Vampires to come, was born on that night. I collected the ashes of the blood reaper after I killed it and wore them in a cloth bag around my neck for my entire life.

  ‘Where did you kill it?’

  There, by that white grave.

  Adri walked to the white grave. It was nameless, just another grave in the weed-choked grass. He stood there for a while, taking in the silence of the graveyard. He looked up at the landscape around, feeling warm in the sunlight. Then he looked down at the grave.

  ‘Well, I guess this is it, Mazumder. It was a fun run.’

  Goodbye, Adri.

  And that was it. Adri thought he would feel a surprisingly heavy weight lifting off his mind, or something else—a part of him he would miss immediately. He sighed, slowly. The Wraith was gone. All those thoughts of sharing a body with another soul that scared him had been proved false. His head was blissfully silent, and he felt much more in control. Adri smiled inwardly, clenching and unclenching his fists. Then he looked down at his arm and saw that the scales were still there.

  ‘Wait a minute. Wasn’t this supposed to go away?’ he cried out. It will leave when I do, the Wraith had once said. Getting rid of that thing is not going to be as easy as you think, Fayne had said.

  ‘Mazumder! Mazumder!’ Adri shouted angrily. Silence. ‘Answer me, goddammit!’ he cried.

  I spoke the truth, Tantric. I told you it will leave when I do, the Wraith spoke.

  ‘You also told me you would leave! That’s why we’re here in the first place!’ Adri shouted, knowing at the same time that this was turning into something ugly, something he didn’t want.

  I cannot leave.

  ‘I have bound you to your word. I will force you out of me!’ Adri said.

  I did mention a graveyard near Howrah, but I did not mention which one. The story about the blood reaper was perfectly true, Tantric, except it did not happen here. I am not bound to be released here.

  ‘Then where?’

  You think I want to be released, Tantric? The Wraith was perfectly serious; its voice carried no traces of amusement, the usual sarcasm or spite. I have done terrible things in my time. There is no way that I’m going to the next Plane where the Angels have come from. No, I shall be summoned across the River. And I’m not going somewhere I sent thousands of vampires, where their spirits wait for mine.

  ‘I do not care about your situation and I told you that, Mazumder! We had a deal!’

  I never had any honour, fool. Things such as deals don’t matter to me. I plan to keep on living as a Wraith; for that purpose I am transforming you. When the transformation is complete I shall have taken over your body. You can then sit and spectate for a while as I have.

  ‘You did it in the Hive,’ Adri said, slowly understanding the gravity of the situation.

  You gave me complete control, Tantric. I made my move; who wouldn’t have? The assassin was right, the pompous brat. I AM after this body. And if you hadn’t shouted out right now and just gone back, I would have been silent until the takeover was complete.

  ‘How long do I have?’

  Do you expect me to tell you that? I’m not stupid, Tantric. I’ve seen what you are capable of. All I will tell you is that I shall not torture you for long, but soon you will be a prisoner in your own mind, the way I was a prisoner in yours.

  ‘Mazumder, there may still be a way to get you to the next Plane. What if we can find it? Will you
consent to leave my body then?’

  I don’t really want to move on, Tantric. I was in the eternal sleep when you woke me up and forced me on this tour around the Old City. I’m seeing everything after so very long, and I like what I see. No, I want to live now.

  ‘You know the Horseman is after me. How long can you survive? I have been running after something for this long, Wraith, and you’ve seen what I’ve been through. Let me complete what I’ve started. Let me, at least, get to the bottom of this conspiracy.’

  As long as you wear the pendant, I can keep dodging the Horseman and hunting vampires forever, Tantric. I’m no kind soul, and I have never cared about this conspiracy or Doomsday. Do what you will; you know you have little time. When I take over, I’m going hunting.

  Adri’s mood changed completely, his resolutions changed rapidly. It was time to reprioritise and quickly so. Not much would change. What was needed to get the Wraith out was a Wraith exorcism, a process that took at least a week to pull off, not to mention he couldn’t do it to himself. He would need another Tantric. He knew he didn’t have a week. Far lesser. The scales had been growing at a phenomenal rate of late, and now he understood what the black shiny growth actually symbolised.

  Think all you want, fool. You are not getting me out, that’s for sure. I suggest you divert your energies to finding out what you came here to find.

  That was actually the road he would have to take. There was no time now for exorcists and rituals. He had lesser time now to find out what he was after, but he had a feeling he was close. He needed to take the next step.

  Pestilence, in a cave beneath the Howrah Bridge.

  Adri got back around noon. The first person he saw was Maya; it seemed to him that he was seeing her for the first time. He had seen her still and lifeless all the time, and had forgotten what she was like when she walked and smiled. Which she was, towards him.

  Gray seemed angry and sore about something. He was talking to Fayne in a low voice. Fayne watched Maya go towards Adri and looked back at Gray. Maya stopped a little distance away from him. Had he been expecting a hug? Adri hadn’t really been thinking about one, but he was surprised to find that he was inwardly—disappointed.